Artist Bio - Mary J Donnelly (Cobalt Fine Arts Gallery)

 

Biography & Artist Statement

 

I have always viewed glass as a mystical material—something within the grasp of conscious control, other times exhibiting a mind of its own, ready to boggle the artist who only thought they had all the answers. It was the fluid spontaneity of glass and the desire to master its evasive shape-within-a-shape quality that first attracted me to glassblowing and still intrigues me. To reach into the bowels of a 2000-degree furnace armed with tool unchanged in centuries, pull a glowing “liquid” material, which logic tells me should be solid, and transform it into an object of substance and longevity has a certain absurdity to it which I find fascinating.

 

My current glassblowing work is inspired by the Sonoran Desert of Southern Arizona—a land of contrasts with rich colors and layer upon layer of open spaces and nothingness. My current work with copper utilizes blown glass in combination with the glow of copper and is inspired by water, flowers and the wildlife of my Minnesota roots.

 

Mary Donnelly was born in 1952 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and currently resides in Tubac, Arizona where she is a full time artist working in glass and copper. She blows glass at Fire Ranch Glassworks in Tucson, Arizona and shows her work in mid-western and southwestern galleries.

 

 

 

 

 

Cobalt Fine Arts